Assigning Surface Heating

Overview

The Surface heating panel assigns surface heating or cooling systems from the database to individual building components (component instances). A complete surface heating configuration consists of three specifications per building component:

1. Active layer — the construction layer in which the pipe register or heating elements lie,
2. Surface heating — the system element from the database (ideal or water-carrying pipe register),
3. Control zone — the room whose thermostat controls the surface heating.

Optionally, a supply system can additionally be assigned, see Supply Systems. How the configuration is represented in the computation kernel is described in Ideal Heating and Surface Heating.

Access

In the Building view, select the Building mode in the property area on the right and expand the Surface heating page (see The Building Workspace). As long as the panel is active, the 3D scene colors all surfaces according to the color of the assigned surface heating; building components with an active layer but not yet with a surface heating appear blue (“Potential for surface heating”). Rooms that serve as the control zone of the rows marked in the table are highlighted in orange.

Heating-type filter

Four buttons above the table filter the displayed building components by their surface normal:

Button	Criterion
All	no filter
Floor heating	floor surfaces, normal points downward ($n_z < -0{,}35$)
Wall heating	wall surfaces (normal approximately horizontal, $\lvert n_z \rvert \le 0{,}35$)
Ceiling heating / cooling	ceiling surfaces, normal points upward ($n_z > 0{,}35$)

At program start, Floor heating is preselected. For double-sided building components (surface on side A and B, e.g. intermediate floors), horizontal surfaces satisfy both the Floor heating and the Ceiling heating / cooling filter, since the same building component is, depending on the point of view, the floor of the upper and the ceiling of the lower room.

The heating-type filter also controls the automatic determination of the control zone when setting the active layer (see below).

Construction filter and further filters

• Construction filter: The selection list contains all constructions used in building components; with All constructions the filter is inactive. This allows the table to be narrowed down, for example, to a specific floor assembly.
• Show only building components with an active layer: hides building components without a set active layer.
• Select all selects all surfaces currently shown in the table exclusively in the 3D scene (undoable).

Building components whose surfaces are switched invisible in the scene generally do not appear in the table.

Table of building components

Each row corresponds to a component instance. Columns:

Column	Content
/	Validity of the surface heating configuration: valid if the active layer and surface heating are set. The tooltip names the missing specifications (“No active layer defined”, “No surface heating assigned”).
Color	color of the assigned surface heating; blue if none is assigned yet.
Component ID	ID of the component instance.
Active layer	material name of the active layer, otherwise ”---”.
Control zone	name of the controlling room; the control zone is changed via the buttons below the table (Control zone: Assign… resp. Switch to other side).
Heating	name of the assigned surface heating.
Supply system	name of the assigned supply system.

The table is sortable; multiple selection of rows is possible. The row selection is coupled with the 3D scene: marking rows selects the corresponding surfaces in the scene, and conversely a surface selection in the scene marks the matching rows. Rows without an active layer are shown grayed out. If the filter result is empty, the note “No matching building components. Adjust the filter above or select surfaces in the 3D view.” appears.

Setting the active layer in the construction preview

Below the table, a section preview of the construction is shown as soon as selected building components exist and all use the same construction. If the selected building components use different constructions, the note “The selected building components use different constructions. Use the construction filter above to select one.” appears instead.

• The currently active layer is marked hatched in the preview; the label shows “Active layer: Material”.
• If the selected building components have different active layers, the label shows “Active layers differ — click a layer to unify.”
• A click on a layer selects it (“Selected layer: Material”) and activates the button Set active layer resp. Update active layer if an active layer already exists. The assignment applies to all rows marked in the table.

When setting the active layer, VICUS Buildings determines the control zone automatically — but only if a specific heating-type filter (not All) is active:

• Floor heating: the control zone is the room above the floor.
• Ceiling heating / cooling: the control zone is the room below the ceiling.
• Wall heating: the control zone is the room on the side of the active layer (layer in the first half of the construction → room on side A, otherwise side B).
• For single-sided building components (only one adjacent surface), the single adjacent room is always used.

Remove active layer deletes the active layer of the selected building components and thereby also resets the assigned surface heating, control zone and supply system.

Assigning and removing surface heating

The buttons in the lower area act on the building components currently selected in the scene; the bold label shows the count (e.g. “Selection: 3”) resp. “No selection”.

• Surface heating: Assign… opens the surface heating database (identical to Databases > Surface heatings…) and assigns the chosen system to all selected building components — but only to those that already have an active layer; building components without an active layer are silently skipped. For the system types (Ideal / pipe register) and parameters (heating/cooling limits, pipe, pipe spacing, maximum fluid velocity, temperature spread, heating/cooling curve) see Usage Submodels.
• Remove heating deletes the surface heating assignment of the selected building components and thereby also removes the control zone and supply system. The active layer is retained.

Assigning and switching the control zone

• Control zone: Assign… opens a zone selection dialog with all rooms of the project. Via the input field (“Enter text to filter the zone list”) the list can be filtered; a double-click or OK applies the room as the control zone for all selected building components with an active layer. The button is only active if at least one selected building component already has a surface heating.
• Switch to other side swaps, for double-sided building components (e.g. intermediate floors between two rooms), the control zone to the room of the other component side (A ↔ B). The button is only active if rows with an assigned surface heating and a double-sided construction are marked in the table.

All assignments are undoable and are saved with the project.

Related topics

• Supply Systems
• Assigning Constructions
• Usage Submodels (Surface heatings database)
• Ideal Heating / Surface Heating Calculation Model